In this recent reflection on the gospel Fr. Laurence Freeman identifies the classic symptoms of stress and suffering underneath Martha's exasperated outbursts, after her efforts at multitasking break down. He suggests she would make a great Patron Saint of Stress. He also highlights the
compassionate response of Jesus to Martha, who by saying her name twice, recalls her gently to herself, leading her to
self knowledge and then Jesus defends the central importance of the contemplative life.

In 2007 the World Community of Christian Meditation (WCCM), received canonical
recognition from the Vatican as an Ecumenical Contemplative Community,
acknowledging the importance of the work of Mary.

I love this next image by the Renaissance Italian artist Vincenzo Campi.His depiction is of Martha in the kitchen, in the throes of her tumultous task of preparing an abundance of food. It's hospitality in uber-excess, is meant to impress on a gigantic scale, but the look on Martha's face suggests to me she is completely overwhelmed by it and has lost it. She is running on empty !

Meanwhile Mary and Jesus are minor figures way behind in
the upper left background, barely visible behind the hanging dead poultry. They appear as small and insignificant. The contrast between the manic profligacy in the foreground and the spareness of the scene behind, showing the peaceful cameo of Mary and Jesus, for me, is pure genius.

and yes, someone in the comments section has highlighted those awful Birkenstock sandals !

"It's not Martha OR Mary, it's Martha AND Mary. Really.
Don't we all have parts that are Martha and parts that are
Mary—Martha the vigilant action-taker and Mary the still and dedicated
listener?
One and the Other. Mary and Martha, reconciled in the shared act of hospitality. Radical.Radical hospitality. The beginning of justice."

As I get older I have much to learn from the ability of Mary to keep her attentive focus always on Jesus in the middle of distractions and the overcharged busyness of the world, that often leaves me frazzled and depleted.I always used to think that contemplation was something as an addition to life, as an extra luxury. I have changed these past few years. I can see retirement as a gift of grace in the sense that it allows me to be drawn to contemplation more and more.

I've been thinking this week how both Martha and Mary remind me of the nature of the human heartbeat.

Each single heart beat has a systole and a diastole i.e systole is the active pumping out and diastole the relaxation filling phase.

Both are equally necessary to a healthy functioning heart.

Martha represents the systolic phase and Mary the diastolic. For optimum functioning the two phases of the heartbeat need to be co-ordinated. Too rapid a systole and too short a diastole leaves us with a racing heart and we end up breathless.

Too slow a systole and too long a diastole and we end up sluggish.Mary's "filling phase" is not something passive in the true sense of the word. The filling phase may be relaxed but is "active" in a paradoxical sense.So stretching the analogy a little further, I see that if I can learn to focus on the presence of Jesus in contemplation, it's as if I am allowing Him to act as my heart's pacemaker. From His calming centre comes the ideal optimum pace for the two combined phases of the heartbeat

As I was looking at the stained glass image above I was drawn to the difference in colour of the two water jugs. Martha's is white and Mary's is red.

Could it be that the white signified the systolic action of emptying and red for fullness of the diastolic filling ?

Then I looked again and saw the scarlet cloak worn by Jesus on the right hand side and the thick rope cord hanging from the tree at one end and the other end attached to a brown bucket- maybe this connotes a link to the woman at the well.

Is the red jar beside Mary a reminder that we are "completely filled and refilled " from the blood of Christ's self emptying on the cross ? I realise the central indispensable role of work and relaxation in my daily life has to be balanced, and I have always understood why the contemplative, monastic life has been held in high esteem in the Catholic Church, but this Gospel takes me closer to the crucial importance of its function, not just for those who have taken vows but for every single one of us.

"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better partand it will not be taken from her."

“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full
life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear
that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought
to do, we have no time for anything else- we are the busiest people in
the world.”Eric Hoffer

Now that I'm intrigued by colour and heartbeats (!), I'm seeing this image above in a different light too- as an icon for contemplation- the figures of Mary and Jesus are BOTH white - maybe this is the ideal state of complete self emptying; kenosis and the eternal, the union of male and female, the perfect integration of anima and animus; all centred round the table on which lies the chalice of transubstantiation, transformation and reconciliation. Martha's black needs more reflection, but maybe black represents the dark chaotic shadow side. Nevertheless, she has approached and come close to the other two in this image and in this trinity is a crucible where transformation still awaits the action of the Holy Spirit.

I don't think my analogy is a perfect one - as it can't be applied to every image, but it was fun playing with it for a while.

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“History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave,But then, once in a lifetime,The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme.So hope for a great sea changeOn the far side of revengeBelieve in miracles....”

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.” ―

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

and five more......

On his inspiration: 'The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis”

On which animal he'd prefer to be:"I might enjoy being an albatross, being able to glide for days and daydream for hundreds of miles along the thermals. And then being able to hang like an affliction round some people's necks."

On fame:"The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. The prizes can’t help you at all.”

On becoming a poet:"My quest for precision and definition, while it may lead backward, is conducted in the living speech of a landscape and a language that I was born with. If you like, I began as a poet when my roots were crossed with my reading."

On authority"At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. "

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Dynamite !!

“You Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits...” Mahatma Gandhi

"The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake."-- Basil C. Hume

Celtic Christianity may offer us a lifeline in the form of an approach to faith which is rooted in the imagination...[Celts] excelled at expressing their faith in symbols, metaphors and images, both visual and poetic.They had the ability to invest the ordinary and commonplace with sacramental significance, to find glimpses of God’s glory throughout creation and to paint pictures in words, signs and music that acted as icons opening windows on heaven and pathways to eternityIan Bradley The Celtic Way

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Favourite Quotes from Pope Francis

“Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.

This offers parameters to assume a correct position for discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s ‘point of view.’ … However the risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct attitude is that of St. Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep searching for God forever.”﻿

-- Pope Francis

L'Osservatore Romano English Version

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Carlo Caretto's Love Letter to His Church

How much I much criticise you my church and yet how much I love you !

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe you more than I owe anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in the world have I seen anything more obscurantist, more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face – and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you. Then too – where should I go? To build another church?

But I cannot build another church without the same defects, for they are my own defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ’s church. No, I am old enough. I know better!"

Fr. Richard Rohr Quotes

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Did the Woman Say ?

Did the Woman Say?

Did the woman say,When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Did the woman say,When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Well that she said it to him then,For dry old men,brocaded robes belying barrennessOrdain that she not say it for him now.

~Frances Croake Frank

Daily Reflections Creighton Ministries

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Great Quotes

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

There are things you can’t reach. Butyou can reach out to them, and all day long.The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

Mary Oliver

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

~Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms, 1989

“And""You can get all A's and still flunk life." "Lost in the mystery of finding myself alive."

Walker Percy

"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

A tough life needs a tough language-and that's what poetry is. That's what literature offers- a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.Jeanette Winterson

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”

- C.S. Lewis

The independent hearts of Celtic descendents everywhere still yearn for the solitary place, still rejoice in the goodness of creation, still see the Lord beside them as they walk, still see Him in the face of friend and stranger. The gospel light with its eastern fire still gleams. The truth still lingers in the heart.Pat Robson – The Celtic Heart

People are itchy and lost and bored and quick to jump at any fix. Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help?

They have been deprived of something by our psychological culture. They have been deprived of the sense that there is something else in life, some purpose that has come with them into the world."

-- James Hillman

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government only when it deserves it.--Mark Twain

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.--George Orwell

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice: - we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.-- George Orwell

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.--Dag Hammarskjöld

If you want to build a ship don't herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

For what are we, without hope in our hearts, that someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters?" -Bruce Springsteen

"Sometimes grace works like waterwings when you feel you are sinking."-Anne Lamott

"A prayer may be a wordless inner longing, a sudden outpouring of love, a yearning within the soul to be for a moment united within the infinite and the good, a humbleness that needs no abasement or speech to express it, a cry in the darkness for help when all seems lost, a song, a poem, a kind deed, a reaching for beauty, or the strong, quiet inner reaffirmation of faith. A prayer in fact can be anything that is created by God that turns to God."

Paul Gallico

"God does not die when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."

Dag Hammarskjold

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

― Paul Hawken

The greatest religious challenge of our age is to hold together social action and spiritual disciplines. This is not just a theological necessity, dictated by the need to integrate all of life around the reality of the living God. It is a matter of sheer survival. The evils we confront are so massive, so inhuman, so impervious to appeals and dead to compassion, that those who struggle against them face the real possibility of being overwhelmed by them.”

~ Theologian Walter Wink

One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

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